Wheatley's Lecture
by Vampire Tails
Summary: Rossanna forgets something, but good ol' Wheatley reminds her.


**A/N:** Hello, everyone! this was originally going to be a part of a bigger story, _The Alternate Route_ , and it details the events that may happen if Chell was allowed to escape and leave Wheatley behind and in control. But I can't find the other scenes as of yet. But then I decided it'd be good only for one-shots. So that's what I'm doing. I'll upload the rest as I find them.  
Okay, happy reading!

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 **The Alternate Route  
Wheatley's Lecture**

The Central AI had earlier reached a sort of compromise with one of his test volunteers who had exploded through that door, angry about something else, but saw the monitor cycling through each Extended Relaxation Chamber and voiced her opinion about that. The compromise—or, rather, promise—was that he'd turn off the camera in her room whenever he thought something private came up, and that Rossanna would inform him via intercom when it was okay to turn the camera back on.

Wheatley performed his unique semblance of a smile at that memory—pulling up his lower eye shield and letting his optical aperture relax and expand—as he tended to the workings of the Facility. Every now and then, that bloody _Itch_ and corruption would rear their ugly heads, and he would shove them back down, slightly panicking. He had developed a sort of resistance against them over the last forty years, as he was able to hold them back a lot longer and shut them back off before they began. Sometimes, though, it would be a full-on mental battle, and some of the times he'd win; other times, not…

He remembered Chell, the lady he'd helped escape forty years ago. Wheatley felt that bloody corruption emanating from the DOS, and he fought against it as best he could—so that when Chell got into the escape lift, he had enough control over himself to rocket the lift, with a fair warning, to the Surface, so fast that if it hadn't stopped in time it would have rocketed through the shed.

Luckily, Chell had sensed the urgency, for he felt her quickly leave the lift and heard her run through the wheat field to a safe distance. He felt proud of himself, but the growing and convalescing corruption made him feel angry at himself as well.

Proud for fighting off the evil enough to let Chell go; angry for letting the only test subject escape.

And GLaDOS had a knack for fueling that very anger…

Wheatley stopped the memory, noticing that he was losing himself, and with a jerk rearranged his angry look into a slightly frightened but overall neutral one. It had been an unknown thirty minutes, and his split vibrant blue optic fell upon the monitor with the test volunteers in their chambers.

Wheatley saw nothing but black, and his aperture contracted, leaving his optic the size of a half-dollar coin for a fraction of a second.

"Wait, what..?" he spluttered, but it soon registered to him that it was Rossanna's chamber as he remembered blacking out the camera, "Ohh…"—he referred to his internal clock, and to further his dismay saw that it had been thirty minutes—"…ohh, for God's—!"

Wheatley then connected himself to the intercom…

Meanwhile, Rossanna lay in bed reading a book, chuckling at the funny parts and coming close to tears at the sad ones and waiting with bated breath through the suspenseful ones. Suddenly, a shrill _beep_ filled the quiet air, and Rossanna started with a yelp, thankfully not dropping the book, but did at a certain voice that ensued.

"Oh, for God's sake, Rossanna!" it was Wheatley, and he sounded more exasperated than mad, thank goodness, "it's only been eight hours since we've set the compromise, and _already_ you've forgotten to pull _your_ end of the bloody bargain?!"

 _Ohh…_ Rossanna sourly remembered, _I forgot to have Wheatley turn the camera back on…_

" _Really,_ Rossanna?" his voice was slightly high-pitched, "I mean, _seriously_ , this is bloody important—it's not like these cameras are here just as a bloody display! it's not like they're there just to take up space like that bloody painting on that wall there,"—he referred to the painting used in a pointless regimen, if you could call it that, she once heard him disparagingly talk about, and she agreed—"They are used to monitor _you_ and send all visual data to _me_ so that I can make sure you're _safe_. Now, isn't _that_ a mighty important job? oh, yes, it _is_ a mighty important job, but I can't do that if the camera is still off even after your private something is over and done with—it's pointless, _mad_!"

She stifled a chuckle, hiding it behind a small, fake throat scratching.

"And that's what makes _your_ job mighty important also—and it's fairly _easy_! all you have to do is push that little button there on the intercom and tell me that it's okay to turn the camera back on, yeah? and I will do just that," there was a _click_ and a _whirr_ as Wheatley reactivated the camera.

"Okay, luv? It's so very simple, like saying the word 'apple'," a tinge of nostalgia crossed his voice at the last four words—she remembered that story too; it brought a smile to her face.

"Oh, and Rossanna?" he paused as if waiting for a response, but continued regardless, "I know that book is really interesting and it's very easy to get yourself lost in it"—he chuckled—"but, _please_ , for the life of you, remember to tell me to turn on the camera."

Rossanna lifted her head toward the camera, smiled and nodded.

"Thank you very much," was all he said before that shrill _beep_ sounded, signaling his disconnection from her intercom. She then sighed, breaking into a short laughter, before she picked the book up off her stomach and made her way to where she was before she was interrupted. The girl would try harder to remember her job, "mighty important" as he'd described, but she wasn't making any guarantees that she would, for the human mind could be a rather slippery thing.


End file.
